1. Technical Field
This invention generally relates to cloud computing systems, and more specifically relates to optimized migration of virtual objects to minimize temporary connections between cloud environments to reduce the cost of resources for the migration.
2. Background Art
Cloud computing is a common expression for distributed computing over a network and can also be used with reference to network-based services such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS is a cloud based service that provides physical processing resources to run virtual machines (VMs) as a guest for different customers. The virtual machine may host a user application or a server.
A virtual appliance is sometimes described as an application that can be delivered as a prebuilt unit to execute in a cloud computing environment. As used herein, a virtual appliance is set of two or more virtual objects that work together to provide a service or function to one or more clients in a cloud environment. The virtual objects may include virtual machines, virtual networks, virtual disks or other virtual appliances. A “live” virtual appliance refers to a virtual appliance that has clients connected to it. It is sometimes desirable to migrate a live virtual appliance from one environment to another. The environment may be a physical machine, a network, cloud or pool. The connected virtual objects that make up the virtual appliance usually cannot be moved all together in parallel, so the virtual objects are typically moved one at a time to the new environment. To keep the virtual appliance live, the system must maintain connections between the various virtual machines across the environments during the migration. Maintaining these connections between the environments may require significant resources.